Turkey and eggs/hatching questions

[recinda]

Hi there,
I am fairly new to chickens, had them since September, and turkeys since October. I had 3 toms and a hen, but this past week we processed the tom due to him being aggressive, and having too many toms. Now, I have one tom going to another home, since he's a royal palm and I want meat turkeys. She has laid 4 eggs now, and we ate two, and I am now going to start collecting them for her to hatch...I hope. Does anyone have any advice on this process? I don't want to put money into an incubator right now, so I need to know if there is a chance that if I put a clutch of eggs in her nest will she start sitting on them? She lays about 2 every 3 days, so I am hoping I can collect and store at about 60 degrees for 2 weeks, then lay them out for her. Should I start putting some wooden eggs there in a week and see if she will start sitting on them? Also, I know she can hatch out up to 14 so I wanted to order some fertile turkey eggs to add to the clutch, any thoughts on that idea? Or maybe I should wait and see how she does on her first time....
Thanks!!

 

[gatorshark75]

Hi there,
I am fairly new to chickens, had them since September, and turkeys since October. I had 3 toms and a hen, but this past week we processed the tom due to him being aggressive, and having too many toms. Now, I have one tom going to another home, since he's a royal palm and I want meat turkeys. She has laid 4 eggs now, and we ate two, and I am now going to start collecting them for her to hatch...I hope. Does anyone have any advice on this process? I don't want to put money into an incubator right now, so I need to know if there is a chance that if I put a clutch of eggs in her nest will she start sitting on them? She lays about 2 every 3 days, so I am hoping I can collect and store at about 60 degrees for 2 weeks, then lay them out for her. Should I start putting some wooden eggs there in a week and see if she will start sitting on them? Also, I know she can hatch out up to 14 so I wanted to order some fertile turkey eggs to add to the clutch, any thoughts on that idea? Or maybe I should wait and see how she does on her first time....
Thanks!!

they generally wont sit on eggs and if you keep the eggs longer than 5 days the chances of hatching are low id incubate them i mean the eggs sale around here for 7 dollars each if you wanna ruin that kinda money wait and see if the hen will sit on the eggs but for me its not worth the chance plus they are so cute to watch hatch

 

[mrbuch]

Mine waited till she had 14 eggs and then sat we did not have a tom so I switched them for chicken eggs and she ended up with baby chicks as you know chickens eggs are a lot thinner than turkey eggs and she took care of them like they were turkeys and has been laying again up to 10 right now here is one of her babies

 

[recinda]

That's so neat. I'm going to try putting some wooden eggs in the nest. It's hard to collect 14 eggs since she lays two every three days.